1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for order packing to form a mixed pallet and a mixed multi-pack. In addition, the present invention relates to a system and method for reducing storage requirements and for forming a design in a stack of articles. The present system and method are contemplated for use with beverage containers.
2. Description of the Background Art
Various order packing methods and systems are known in the art. These systems, however, do not provide great flexibility and do not readily accommodate different sized packages on a pallet. Moreover, with conventional method and systems, it is difficult to customize orders.
In current manufacturing systems, such as a bottling plant for beverage containers, the system is operated with the object of filling a warehouse. Orders are packed from the stock within the warehouse and to therefore meet customer orders, a large inventory is needed. Such beverage containers can include bottles, cans or single serve beverage boxes (such as juice boxes). This leads to increased storage requirements and increased costs.
Also, in current systems for manufacturing beverage containers, for example, the units are stored based on stock keeping units. For example, one flavor of beverage would be stored in six packs, twelve packs, twenty-four packs, etc. The base unit of each of these stock keeping units would be a can of soda for example, but the need to store different sized packages of each soda has lead to an increase in demand for storage space.
Accordingly, a need in the art exists for a simple and effective system and method for order packing. This system should change the production process such that orders are assembled just before they are shipped in order to reduce storage requirements and costs. In other words, there is a need for a production process to be order driven rather than driven by the need to maximize the amount of product warehoused. Also, there is a need in the art to simplify the storage requirements such that items can be stored on the bases of a flavor type, for example, rather than as a stock keeping unit. This need goes hand in hand with a need to reduce current inventory requirements.